I am still having fun flying the latest official patch of IL2 Sturmovik. I usually get online with an old IL2 squad once a week to have some laid-back fun shooting at each other, and I also still get onto Vinni Puh server out of Russia once a week or so.

Vinni Puh has never been on Hyperlobby, but it is still running same as it has for a decade or so and it still runs some of the old eastern front maps and plane sets just as it did when IL2 was young.

Hyperlobby is really dead these days, and I have not used it a whole lot over the last few years, just as often I will simply join any serer I want to via direct IP. I see the original Ubi general discussion forum is wholly pathetic these days. Looks like they lost all their old threads and only have several pages in their archives, all that is left there are the very best old cock-suckers and ignorant noobs.

There is still a few decent servers for those who want to fly the official patch on closed cockpit with no outside views. Most of the IL2 population has sold out to using MODS and puttering around like moron-gamers on easy-settings servers.

I am officially an old man now, in my 50s, I can not see that well anymore, I still fly with the same stick I used in 2001, do not use track IR and have an old 4:3 monitor for my PC that is not that high a res, but I still kick 90%+ of the asses that give me a try, old age and treachery beat youth and enthusiasm every time huh?

Hopefully this summer I will spend most of my time screwing together my now antique Norton motorcycles and working on the house and property, but I will still be flying IL2 online on nights I can't sleep, rainy days or when I am snowed in. As long as I and some others have some health and quality of life, and the planet is not destroyed by the fools working so hard at it, I imagine somewhere there will always be a few people trying to fly IL2 online.

Found out that CoD is the same as IL2, except the blues aren't so fast or powerful anymore. Just like on an old eastern front server, flying a F2 against La5s.
Only clear difference is the engine management, otherwise... the flying feels the same, furballs are the same: if it turns or rocket-climbs, it's red.